Mitch’s voice came to me again. “You mind if I finish the game?”
I did. I did mind. I wanted to go to bed. I wanted hot Detective Mitch Lawson off my couch before I did something in my extreme exhaustion that I’d regret, like jump him. I was tired but I reckoned I’d never be too tired to do that.
But after he watched the kids all day, if he didn’t want to miss the mere seconds he would miss walking from my apartment across the breezeway to his, who was I to say no?
“Be my guest,” I muttered, still staring mindlessly at the screen then asked, “Want a beer?”
“You got enough energy to get me one?” he asked back.
“Just,” I mumbled, turned and wandered into the kitchen. I opened the fridge and called, “Bud, Coors, Newcastle or Fat Tire?”
“Coors,” Mitch called back.
I decided against wine and went for beer. Wine required a corkscrew and a glass. Beer you just popped the cap and sucked it straight from the bottle. I didn’t have the energy to fiddle with a corkscrew and a glass. And anyway, wine didn’t go with baseball. Even Cubs fans who accepted everybody might look down on someone drinking wine while watching baseball.
I popped the caps, wandered back to my living room and got close enough to Mitch to stretch out an arm so he could take the bottle from my hand. He took it and I moved to the armchair and collapsed in it.
I sucked back beer. A lot of it. It tasted good.
“Ah,” I breathed after I was done. I lifted my feet and put them on the coffee table.
“Your feet hurt after you’re on those heels all day?” Mitch asked and I looked down at the high, spiked heels next to my chair.
Then I looked at the TV.
“Yes,” I answered.
Even though I wore heels every day for years, this was no lie. They still hurt.
I sucked back more beer and watched a Dodger strike out.
I vaguely sensed Mitch moving and I equally vaguely heard his beer bottle hit the coffee table. What was not vague was his hands capturing my feet to pull them into his lap thus twisting me in my seat.
My head jerked toward him to see he was no longer stretched on my couch. He was sitting at the end closest to my chair, my feet were in his lap and he was lifting his to set them on the coffee table.
“Um…” I mumbled when I’d regained the ability to speak. “What are you doing?”
His fingers on both hands dug into one of my feet, his palms wrapped around, the warmth, the pressure, the power, holy crap…heaven.
“Massaging your feet,” Mitch belatedly replied, long, muscled legs stretched out in front of him, eyes to the TV, his hands working sheer magic.
“Uh…Mitch, my feet are fine,” I told his profile.
“They’ll be better when I’m done,” he told the TV.
He was not wrong.
“I think –” I started to protest, I lost his profile and gained the full beauty of his face when he looked to me.
“Shut up, Mara, and relax.”
“’Kay,” I murmured.
He stared at me a second, shook his head and looked back to the TV, his hands not for a moment ceasing in giving bliss.
I drank beer and watched baseball while I tried to force myself to relax. Mitch finished with one foot and started on the other. I drank more beer, watched baseball and Mitch’s talented hands did what I could not do and forced me to relax.
I was in the zone. Beer done, bottle on the floor by the chair, eyelids half-mast, probably close to drooling when Mitch’s hands left the foot he was working on and went back to the other one but up, starting to massage my calf.